Dawn broke over an anxious Leaf village. Hinata and Sakura were sitting, just outside the main gate. Hinata was a mess of emotions and Sakura was doing her best to comfort her and keep her company. Hinata was very thankful that the other kunoichi was kind enough to stay with her. She could tell that Sakura's own past kept pressing down on as well. Mostly they just sat in silence.
"It's my fault you know," said Sakura quietly, "this obsession of his with Sasuke. I made Naruto promise to bring him back." She shook her head. "He's been trying for so long to fulfill that damned promise."
Hinata stared at the road, watching the morning mist drift through the woods. She started to speak but her voice caught in her throat. She coughed and started again. "I… I heard a rumor that you tried to kill him once… Sasuke I mean." She glanced over at Sakura. "Did you?"
Sakura nodded uncomfortably. "I tried… I probably could have. He was weak. He had just fought the Five Kage and all their escorts. He'd just killed Danzo, the temporary hokage, and he was in the middle of a duel with Kakashi-sensei." Sakura looked away. "I gave him half a chance first. I told him I was going to join him. I said that I was leaving the Leaf Village to be with him."
Hinata looked up. "Did you really mean that?"
Sakura paused. She glanced away. "Of course not. I was… hoping that I might get the opportunity to convince him to change his ways… one last time." She swallowed. "Do you remember that redheaded kunoichi we had captured, Karin? She'd been injured in the fight. She was bleeding badly, punctured lung." Sakura took a deep breath. "Sasuke told me to prove my loyalty to him by killing her. He said she was no longer any use to him. I hesitated in killing her, and he... tried to attack me instead. Kakashi saved me. That's what convinced me that Sasuke was gone, really gone. I no longer knew who this person was. While Kakashi and Sasuke were fighting, I saw my chance. I crept up behind him and tried to cut him with a poisoned kunai I prepared specially for him." Sakura's voice dropped to a whisper. "I still couldn't do it. I hesitated. Sasuke disarmed me and moved to attack me with my own kunai." Sakura shrugged. "Naruto saved me."
"Was this before or after you told Naruto you loved him?" asked Hinata in a small voice.
Sakura winced. "You heard about that?" Hinata nodded slowly. "It was after," admitted Sakura. "I was... hoping to convince him that he should just give up on Sasuke. This obsession of his was killing him."
"Do you love him?" asked Hinata quietly. She couldn't quite put into words why, but the answer to that question was suddenly very important to her.
"I… That's…" Sakura sighed heavily. "He's one of my best friends. He's always been there for me." She smiled. "He's also an obnoxious, loud, crude little idiot. Maybe… Once… I thought we could date but…" Sakura shook her head. "Do you know what he said to me after I confessed to him? 'I hate people who lie to themselves.' That little snot." Sakura shook her head.
"He loves you, you know."
Sakura looked up at the sky and frowned. "No. Naruto's had a crush on me forever. All the time when we were growing up he wanted to be around me. He was always bugging me, always asking me out and stuff." She stared at Hinata. "When he came back to the village, the one he asked for was you." Sakura sighed and leaned back. "He's my friend. One of the best friends I've ever had," she smiled. "But you are the one he wants." Sakura laughed. "Did you know he took two hours trying to pick out flowers for your first date because he wanted to get them 'just right'?"
"Really?" asked Hinata.
Sakura nodded. "I was there. He made Ino go through every flower twice just to make sure that there wasn't any hidden meaning behind them. Ino just kept getting more jealous and upset. Finally, she just threw a sunflower at him. 'Here, just tell Hinata you were thinking of her! Now beat it!'"
Hinata smiled weakly. "He did tell me he had been thinking of me."
Sakura smirked. "So it worked. I was afraid he was going to say something stupid and mess it all up."
Hinata smiled back. "He did say something stupid, but I forgave him."
Sakura patted Hinata on her back. "See? You are better for him than I would ever be. I would have just punched his lights out!"
Hinata's smile crumbled. "What if he's gone Sakura? What will I do?"
Sakura put her arm around Hinata. "Love him. Love him but say goodbye." She stared off down the road. "That's all you can ever do."
An alarm began to clatter in the village. There was a blur of speed and a squad of wall garrison shinobi appeared at the main gate. There were reinforced by a second squad, and a third, and a fourth. Neji, Tenten and Lee appeared. Neji gave her a quick nod. "Hinata-sama," he said bluntly. His byakugan was activated and he was scanning the road.
Groggily Hinata stumbled to her feet. "Neji-onisan. What happened?"
"Two people on foot are approaching. Somehow, they managed to bypass the first two picket lines without alerting anyone. They only showed up a minute ago by byakugan." Tenten unrolled a scroll and summoned a feathered fan. Lee reached down and slowly unbuckled the weights from his legs. "Take a look," he said simply.
Hinata activated her byakugan. The distance flew by and she stared at the two flickering points of chakra. Her cheeks grew damp as she looked at the one on the left. Sakura came up beside her. "Is it Naruto?" she asked quietly.
Hinata focused on the one on the right. "It's both of them I think," she said softly. Sakura took a small step back.
Hinata was suddenly aware of the presence of Kiba and Shino beside her. Akamaru whined at her feet. "Are you going to be okay Hinata?" asked Kiba, his voice cracking with stress.
"I'll do what I have to," said Hinata firmly.
Shikamaru arrived. Ino and Choji trailed him. "Everyone needs to spread out here people!" he called. We've got four sealing teams en route. Our job is to assess the situation and act as necessary." He began pointing around the area. "I want a solid force here holding the gate. Scouts and ambushers, I want you deployed in the woods. Anyone with powerful ninjutsu or summoning," he looked over at Temari, "I want a killing zone there!" He picked up a stone and threw it twenty meters down the road. "When I give the word, I want anything within ten meters of that stone to be dust. Am I clear?" He looked around at the gathered shinobi. "Let's move people!"
Shikamaru gave Sakura and Hinata a glance and then walked over to them. "If you guys think you would be better off somewhere else…"
"We'll stay," said Hinata flatly.
Shikamaru nodded curtly. "Alright. Sakura, I want you with the main group here at the gate. You are acting chief medic until I say otherwise. Hinata," he said turning, "you are on scout and ambush with your squad." He leaned forward. "Make sure these two are the only ones," he said quietly.
Kiba picked a spot about a hundred meters from the main gate, four meters from the edge of the road in the woods. As usual, he and Akamaru just seemed to melt away into the underbrush. Shino crouched next to a termite mound beside a rotten old tree. There was a buzzing noise and a flurry of dust and he just faded into the mound.
Hinata used the transformation jutsu. She turned into a large stand of bamboo. She let the wind rustle through her leaves. She sat and waited.
A small beetle flew by and tickled her ear. It began to buzz in long and short bursts. Hinata translated the Morse code. "Chakra leaking," she thought. Her emotions were getting the better of her. Shino could detect her hiding spot. She decided to burn off the excess nervous energy. Surrounding the stand of bamboo was now a clutch of sunflowers.
There were footsteps on the road. Hinata could hear two sets of voices, one loud, one indistinct. Her heart clenched at the sound of the loud one.
"I'm telling you, there is no one who has ever made me feel like this! I mean she gave me a whole book full of ramen coupons. How cool is that that, that she knows me that well?" The fainter voice said something back. "I am not just a stomach with legs!" yelled Naruto indignantly. "There's a lot more to it than that! I'm telling you, she may not always agree with me but it's like…" Naruto stopped and sighed. "It's like she knows the exact thing to make me feel better. It's like no matter how bad things are she knows just how to bring me back."
Sasuke scoffed. "Yeah, with ramen."
"Shut up jerk," said Naruto grouchily. He started walking again, this time looking pensive. "I hope I didn't screw everything up this time."
Sasuke snickered. "I'm sure that if she's half as wonderful as you've been telling me she'll meet you at the main gate wearing nothing but an udon negligee and holding a pair of chopsticks."
Naruto blushed. "Shut up," he said angrily. "At least I have a girlfriend."
Sasuke stopped. "Hey, I've had women chasing after me since forever."
"Uh-huh," said Naruto smugly, "and how many of them have run away screaming because big scary Sasuke Uchiha started jumping up and down and ranting about blood and revenge… Oh wait, could it have been… All of them?"
Sasuke turned on him. "You are still the most annoying person I have ever known. Am I going to have to beat your ass again to get you to shut up?"
Naruto grinned at him. "Oooh! Naruto is right yet again, but that hurts my tender little feelings, so I'm going to threaten to pummel him!" He waggled his fingers at Sasuke.
Sasuke turned and started walking away from the village. "Seriously, If you're going to be like this, there is no way I am going back to the Leaf Village with you. I will turn around and walk away right now."
"Sasuke!"
"I'm not joking Naruto," he said still walking. "I didn't think this was such a good idea in the first place. Don't make me regret it before I even get there."
"Okay, fine, you win," called Naruto. "I'll stop picking on you, you big baby. Jeez." Sasuke turned and started walking back. Naruto came alongside him. "Would it kill you to pretend to be just the littlest bit happy? I mean you're coming back to Konoha for the first time in six years. Don't you miss it?"
There was a long pause. Sasuke looked away. "I'm a bit more concerned with what will happen to me once I walk through that gate."
Naruto snorted. "You mean aside from the welcome back celebration and all the girls screaming your name?"
Sasuke stopped again. "I'm serious. I've done a lot of… things."
Naruto put his hand on Sasuke's shoulder. "Hey don't worry about it. We'll be walking in there together. We'll get a hero's welcome!"
Sasuke shrugged and looked down at his feet. "You do realize that we're surrounded right now?" He glanced at Hinata's hiding spot. "We're being set up for an ambush," he said in a conversational tone.
It was Naruto's turn to shrug. "I guess it was too much to hope that they'd greet us with milk and cookies." He grinned at Sasuke and clapped him on the back. "Look at it this way, they haven't attacked. Maybe they just want to have a look-see?" He started walking again. "Come on Sasuke, trust me, if we want everything to work out, this is the best way. Let's just stroll on up and say hi."
Hinata released her transformation jutsu after they passed. She stared after them in silence. There was a hot worm of pain gnawing under her breastbone.
Kiba reappeared beside her. "Well... it doesn't sound like they're planning on attacking the village," he said quietly.
"There is always the small possibility that their conversation could have been a very clever ruse in order to put us at ease," murmured Shino who had popped up from the termite mound.
Kiba looked at him in a funny way. "I don't know, Naruto sounded pretty much like his usual idiotic self."
"Like I said, It would have to be a very clever ruse," muttered Shino.
"What do you think Hinata?" asked Kiba. He looked around. "Hinata?" Hinata had climbed out of the brush and was following Naruto and Sasuke at a distance.
Naruto cupped his hands around his mouth. "Oi!" he called up to the gate. "Is there anyone up there? I need to speak to whoever is in charge!" He thought for a moment. "Actually... I'd like to talk to whoever is just in charge of the main gate right now! I don't want to talk to Granny Tsunade just yet. She's probably still really mad at me!"
Sasuke nudged a rock in the road with his foot. He murmured something to Naruto. Naruto grinned and raised his hands to his mouth again. "Sasuke wants to know if we're in the exact center of the killzone, or if you'd prefer we moved a little bit to the left?"
Sasuke elbowed him. "Shut up you idiot!" he said audibly.
The gate creaked open and Shikamaru stepped out. He stopped well away from Naruto and Sasuke. "Naruto," he said nodding. "You've managed to cause us a great deal of worry. Do you want to explain what happened?"
Naruto grinned and motioned towards Sasuke with both hands. "Hey Shikamaru! Am I glad to see you! I found him!" he said proudly. "Sasuke is back! Any chance we could head on in? I promised him a bowl of ramen."
Shikamaru tensed. "Nobody is going anywhere until you can explain what the both of you are doing here, and that you really are who you say you are."
Naruto stepped forward. "Hey, Shikamaru don't be like this. You know it's me right?"
"I know you look like Naruto, and you sound like Naruto. Now I would recommend that you do not move from that spot until we can verify that there is no threat to Konoha here!"
"Come on Shikamaru. I'll vouch for Sasuke. I promise, he intends no harm to the Leaf Village," called out Naruto.
"And who will vouch for you?" asked Shikamaru.
"Huh?"
"How do we know that you don't intend any harm? How do we know that you are the real Naruto?"
Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a worried glance. "Um… How long have I been gone?" asked Naruto.
"You don't know?" asked Shikamaru incredulously.
Naruto and Sasuke exchanged another glance. "We fought for a while," said Sasuke.
"And I beat him!" said Naruto.
"Shut up doofus, you did not," said Sasuke. He cleared his throat. "We both kind of fell into the river and got swept away."
"And then we fell unconscious," said Naruto. "We lost track of time."
"We came to, on the riverbank some kilometers away," added Sasuke.
"And then we had a long talk," said Naruto, "really really long."
Sasuke turned his head away. "I've been convinced that I made some… poor life choices. I've returned to…" His voice trailed off. Naruto nudged him. "Try to rectify my mistakes and pay for my crimes."
"I totally beat him," said Naruto in a stage whisper.
"Did not, loser."
Shikamaru shook his head. "Okay, witty repartee aside, I need some proof of who you are here guys."
"Come on Shikamaru you heard our story. What more do you need?" asked Naruto.
"Well, for starters I'd like more than that lame-ass excuse for a report! We found your battle site in the Valley of the End. I'd like to know how come the pair of you are still alive?"
"We told you," started Naruto. "We fell into a river."
Shikamaru palmed his face. "And you really expect me to accept that? Just how stupid do you think I am?"
Naruto and Sasuke exchanged another glance. "It's true, more or less," said Naruto simply. "Look, is Granny Tsunade behind this? I don't understand what all the fuss is about."
"Wow, you really are dense aren't you? How long ago was it we were fighting powerful shinobi that had been brought back to life?" asked Shikamaru.
Naruto's jaw dropped. "You think... I'm dead?"
Sasuke swore under his breath and stepped forward. "I have important information regarding the war criminal Kabuto Yakushi that I wish to give to the Leaf Village," he said in a booming voice. He worked his Katana scabbard from his belt and let it fall to the ground. "I have the location of his hideout, intel on his forces and jutsu, and I know that he is planning attacks on the Five great nations. I swear that I will not lift a hand against anyone in the Hidden Leaf Village. I am willing to exchange this information in return for being allowed to enter."
"They think I'm dead?" murmured Naruto pulling at his hair. "Shit... This is not good. This is really not good!"
Shikamaru rubbed his chin and stared at Sasuke. "I'm willing to accept that offer on a temporary basis if we can find some way to verify your identity."
"Where's Hinata?" asked Naruto anxiously.
"I will take any test you require," said Sasuke calmly. "I'm ready to come back and prove that I can be trusted."
"Is Hinata okay?" called out Naruto, a little louder.
Shikamaru looked at Sasuke thoughtfully. "Are you sure? The accommodations you'll have until you can be trusted will be pretty... uncomfortable." Sasuke looked up at the sky and made a quick nod. Shikamaru sighed. "I'll pass the message to the Hokage." Sasuke exhaled and his shoulders slumped. Shikamaru looked at Naruto. "Now we just have to figure out how to verify him."
"What did you say to me via your clone!" called out Hinata.
Naruto jumped. He turned around, relief plain on his face. "Hinata!" he called out. He took a step towards her that faltered as he saw her expression. "Um… Hey Hinata," he said quietly.
She was trembling. "I asked you, what was the message you left for me after you ran off?" Her voice was shaking. She took a shuffling step forward.
Naruto swallowed. "That I was leaving to protect the village, to save my friend and to protect you." He glanced up at Hinata and quickly looked away. "I also said I love you."
Hinata took another step forward. "And what else?"
"That I'm really really sorry, and that I did this because I didn't want to see you get hurt," he mumbled.
"And how do you think I have felt since you left me?" She took another step. "What do you think happened to me after you ran off, and then lied to me, and tricked me, left me to worry and to cry?" She took another step. "How do you think I felt then?"
Naruto looked down at his feet. "I came back to you didn't I? Just like you asked me to."
Hinata took another step. She was within an arm's length of Naruto. She nodded and tears began to trickle down her face. "Yes, you did come back. But I'm not sure what that means to me anymore," she whispered.
Sasuke made an uncomfortable face and took a shuffling step away. Naruto grabbed him and pulled him back. "You remember Sasuke don't you Hinata? I managed to bring him back. Look!"
Sasuke shot Naruto a disgusted look. Then he turned to Hinata and gave her a small bow. "Hinata-san," he said politely, "I have heard a great deal about you from Naruto."
Hinata ignored him. She took another step towards Naruto so that they were inches apart. She reached out and touched his arm. "Is it really you?" she asked quietly, "Are you really here?"
Naruto looked down at her and nodded. "I'm really sorry Hinata. This was... just something that I had to do."
Hinata touched his arm again, and nodded her head sadly. She turned and walked between Sasuke and Naruto back towards the main gate. When she reached Shikamaru, she stopped next to him. "It's Naruto," she said quietly.
"Are you sure?" asked Shikamaru. "Some of the resurrected Shinobi could talk and think and still had their memories."
Hinata nodded. "I'm sure. It wouldn't hurt this much if he were dead." She walked through the gate and into the village. She barely heard the conversation between Sasuke and Naruto.
"Well, I guess that answers your question," said Sasuke flatly.
"What question?" asked Naruto.
"The one about whether or not you messed things up, doofus."
Hinata didn't get out of bed for the rest of the day. She slept right through until the next morning. She woke up, ate and then returned to bed. Sleep seemed to be the only way to dull the emptiness she felt.
She arose again in the late afternoon to use the bathroom. When she re-entered her bedroom, she stopped and stared. Sitting on the corner of her bed was Hanabi. "What do you want?" Hinata mumbled.
Hanabi swung her feet back and forth. "Naruto-nichan has been to the compound four times so far. He keeps asking for you and bringing presents."
"Really," said Hinata in a dry voice.
Hanabi nodded. "Neji-onisan caught him trying to scale the wall last night too. He had to chase him away." Hanabi paused and stared at her sister. "Are you going to want to see him again?"
Hinata sighed and sat down on the bed. "I don't know Hanabi... What he did to me was pretty awful."
Hanabi shrugged. "I don't know about awful… It was certainly stupid, but Naruto-kun has never been that bright." She glanced over at her sister. "It never seemed to bother you before."
Hinata lay back across the bed. "He was never my boyfriend before."
Hanabi twisted her mouth in thought. "It seems to me that if you didn't want a stupid boyfriend, then maybe you shouldn't have picked a stupid boy." She looked over at her sister. "If it matters anything to you... I think he still really wants to be your boyfriend. The most recent present he brought by was a bunch of fancy chocolates in a heart shaped box."
Hinata rolled over. "What else did he bring?" she asked, muffled into the mattress.
Hanabi counted off on her fingers. "First there were the flowers. He got you a dozen roses. Father said not to tell anyone because he felt that red roses were an inappropriate declaration of passionate love. Then came a sunflower with a note attached. Father wouldn't let me read the letter, but he muttered something about 'unseemly poetry with horrible meter and poor imagery besides'. Then there was a little stuffed toy blue bird and a little stuffed toy fox." Hanabi frowned. "I don't quite get that one, and if it's anything kinky, I'm not sure I want to." She smiled again. "But the animals are really cute! Father said I wasn't to bother you about it, but if you don't want them, can I keep them?"
Hinata did a half shrug into her pillow. "Go ahead," she said.
"Cool," said Hanabi. "Then there were the chocolates. Father gave orders to have them thrown away in the trash, but I thought 'Hey! This is the good stuff from the Akimichi Chocolatiers! I can't let it go to waste!' Most of them were amazing, but there were these ones with a whole cherry inside." Hanabi stuck out her tongue. "They tasted nasty." He gave a small smile. "Oh! And then he tried to sneak into the compound a couple of times. I think he was planning on singing to you or something. He had a guitar and everything." The bed gently rocked with each kick of Hanabi's feet. "Father says if you're going to break up with Naruto you should hurry up and do it. We're leaving for some Hyuga business meeting in the capital in a couple of hours and there won't be enough people around to chase him away." Hanabi poked her sister gently. "Personally, I'd like it if you waited until he brought you some more candy first. But tell him no more of those cherry things okay? They were gross." Hanabi hopped off the bed and sauntered out the door.
Hinata shifted so she was lying lengthwise in the bed. She tried to fall back asleep, but it was just no use. She was all slept out. Her thoughts kept buzzing around in her head as she tried to make sense of her current situation and her feelings. She kept flipping back and forth between the good memories of Naruto, the way it felt to hold him and to kiss him, and the cold stab of betrayal she felt when he left her. She remembered how good it felt just to be sitting next to him on a warm sunny day, followed by the crushing loss when she believed he was dead. Her room seemed very small and the air oppressive. She decided to go for a walk.
Her feet took her to the bridge over the canal. She leaned against the railing, and stared out over the water. Every so often she would look up at the clouds and the sun. There were flights of swallows darting and swooping through the clouds of insects hovering over the water. Occasionally a fish would jump from the stream and splash into the water.
She sensed him standing behind her, but she ignored him. Finally Naruto cleared his throat. She did not turn around. "How did you know I was here?" she asked.
Naruto stepped next to her and leaned both hands on the bridge. "I left a couple of clones watching your house. One followed you when you left, and then undid himself to let me know where you were headed." He thought for a second and frowned. "That sounded a lot more creepy and stalker-ish right now than it did when I first came up with that plan. So let me apologize for that right away." Naruto looked up at the sky. "It's nice out isn't it?" Hinata just stared out over the water.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come see you right away. Granny Tsunade kept me under observation for eight hours, and they ran all sorts of different tests on me and Sasuke just to make sure there wasn't anything weird about us." He scratched the back of his head. "Sasuke is still in holding and interrogation right now. I'm going to show him around the Village when he gets out." He looked over at Hinata. She still refused to meet his gaze. He sighed and bowed his head. "I'm so sorry Hinata... I don't know what else I should say." He reached out and touched her hand. "Can you at least tell me what you are thinking?"
Hinata pulled her hand away. She wrapped her arms around herself. "I am thinking how all my life I was told that I was worthless. How all my life everyone told me I couldn't do anything, that I wouldn't amount to anything." She looked up at him quickly and then looked away. "Everyone said this, except for this one boy whom I gave my heart to. I confessed my feelings to him, and received nothing in return. I waited and hoped and tried to rationalize away every time he rejected or ignored me. Then one day it turns out, he likes me back and for once in my life, I have everything I have ever needed." Hinata stared up at Naruto, her lip trembling. "Then a few months later the boy goes off on an impossible mission, and he leaves, expecting to never return. Even worse he wasn't going to tell me about it. And when I do find out, he sneaks away, leaving me behind." She swallowed. "At least my father told me I was worthless to my face." She shook her hair in front of her face to hide her tears. "Why didn't you want me to come with you? How could you do this to me? Have you ever believed I was good enough for you?" she cried. Her shoulders shook with sobs.
She stiffened when he first embraced her. "It's okay," he said quietly. "It's okay." Naruto stroked her hair. "It's all my fault. I am the stupidest person alive." Hearing his voice, feeling his touch... Hinata relaxed in his arms. She loved him so much. The question was, could she still be with him?
That thought sent a fresh wave of anguish through her. She pressed her face into his shoulder. "I made a mistake," he said softly as he tried to comfort her. "I made the biggest mistake I could ever make. I hope you can forgive me." He rested his chin on the top of her head and continued. "Kurama was so angry with me when he found I left you behind. In a way, I was angry with me as well. I thought I knew the exact right thing to do, and all I ended up doing was hurting you." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I don't think you are weak Hinata. I know you are strong. I just... didn't want you to get hurt for my sake again." He sighed. "I know now what a mistake that was." He smiled down at her. "Do you remember how my clone told you that you know exactly what to do or say to bring me back from the darkness? Well, I learned something else - you are also what makes me strong." He looked up into the sky. "I really wish that I had brought you with me. Things would have really turned out differently. Even so, it was the memories of you that kept me going when... everything looked so terrible."
Hinata looked up at Naruto. "What are you talking about? Your fight with Sasuke?"
Naruto grimaced. "Kind of… Yeah."
Hinata stared at him. "Kind of? Naruto… What happened?"
"Well, it was... more or less like we told Shikamaru."
Hinata stared into his eyes and shivered. There was something in his gaze she'd never seen before. A deep seated pain... pain and... fear? "What aren't you telling me?"
Naruto sucked in a breath. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, that traumatized, hunted look was gone. "Look Hinata… There's a lot of other stuff that happened but it's very… personal." Hinata gave him a frown. "Personal to Sasuke," explained Naruto hurriedly. "I'm not quite... comfortable sharing his stuff without his permission... especially… something like this." He gave her an imploring look and bit his lip. She could feel the anxiety coursing through his body. "Please… I know that... right now... I have no right to ask you for a favor… but please… don't ask… not now."
Hinata stepped back and glared at him. "Fine. I won't ask for specifics. Can you at least reassure me that everything is alright?" she asked, hoping that the irritability in her voice covered up her own uneasiness. She would definitely have to hear more about this later .
Naruto gave her a somewhat relieved smile. "I'm still me and Sasuke is Sasuke, more or less." He reached out for her hand. She gave it to him hesitatingly. "Look… the most important thing right now is: What can I do to make things better between us?" he asked with a pleading look on his face. "The one thing I've learned from all this is that I want you to be by my side." He swallowed. "Is there anything I can do to... convince you to stay with me?"
Hinata was silent for a long time. Naruto was begging her to stay with him… and she found that deep inside her heart, she still wanted to be his girlfriend… but some things would have to change. "Promise me…"
"Anything," interrupted Naruto.
Hinata gave him a frown. "Promise me that you will never do anything like this again. You will never leave me out, you will never lie to me again. If you feel like you need to protect me, we will talk about it first, understood?" Naruto nodded. "You say that I am strong? Well, start treating me that way."
"I just want to say again, I'm so sorry," said Naruto.
Hinata gave his hand a little squeeze. "I love you very much Naruto Uzumaki," she said quietly, "but having you leave like that, and lie to me like that and then to think that you had died… That was too painful Naruto. I can't take anything like that again." She looked up at him. "When I heard that you were dead, I felt like I was ready to die too."
Naruto looked away. "Don't ever do that Hinata. That would ruin my world." Naruto looked back at Hinata and cleared his throat. "So… does this mean you're you willing to give me a second chance?" he asked nervously.
Hinata took a deep breath and nodded. "You are very precious to me Naruto Uzumaki. Of course I will give you another chance."
Naruto smiled and inched forward. He traced her jawline with one finger. He gently lifted her head up and stared into her eyes. "I love you Hinata Hyuga. I promise not to lie to you again. I promise that I will do better and try not to do or say as many stupid things. I promise that I will try to be more sensitive to your feelings. I promise that…" Naruto ran out of things to say. He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.
Hinata pressed back, gently at first and then harder. Their tongues danced together, and Naruto pulled her close to him. Her hands slid under his jacket, and under his shirt. He groaned as she ran her nails over his back. He began to kiss her face, her ears and her neck. Hinata shivered and pressed her nose into his jacket and inhaled the smell of him. She felt dizzy to be held by him again.
"Oh, Naruto," she moaned as he nipped at her neck. "I am so glad that you are here with me."
He leaned back and brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. He stared into her eyes. "I missed you so, so much Hinata." He crushed her to him and kissed her fiercely.
Hinata giggled and gave him a gentle push. "It's nice to know that you miss me that much after only three days."
Naruto grinned weakly. "Yeah… Sorry... It seemed longer."
Hinata gave him a hug and a quick peck. "I have one more request for you Uzumaki-san."
"Anything," said Naruto eagerly.
Hinata linked her arm with his. "Take me out to dinner. I'm starving."
Naruto smiled and spun her as if they were dancing. "Anywhere my lady wishes to go, I will take her."
Hinata smiled. "Do you think you could manage to take me out for ramen?"
"Ramen?" asked Naruto, a little surprised. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather go somewhere fancier?"
Hinata smiled and slipped an arm around his waist. "I think I'd rather have ramen. It always reminds me of our first date."
Naruto laughed. "Well, if you want to be really nostalgic, I can use these to pay for our meal." He dug through his pockets and pulled out the booklet of coupons. "Do you want to go to Ichiraku's?"
Hinata grinned. "I'm hungry enough to eat up the rest of your coupons. I am a little surprised though. I thought you would have eaten through them all by now."
Naruto leaned over and kissed her. "The most beautiful woman in the world gave these to me as a gift. It wouldn't feel right using them without her."
